Have you read the article? This is not about people not willing to get vaccinated but about pharmaceutical companies wanting legal protection by a government authority. Also this seems to affect mostly displaced people in poorer countries (e.g. Afghan refugees in Iran), which is not comparable to asylum seekers in your (I suppose rather wealthy) home country.
This was an exceptionally long blog post to say “we don’t want to be vaccinated and have no recourse if we refuse during a public health crisis.” Compared to other countries, these measures don’t seem onerous (Australian lockdowns, United States employer vaccine mandates, 14 European countries having a similar COVID passport).
Except that the people who are worried can simply get vaccinated themselves.
There may be a few people who can not be vaccinated (old and very sick), but it hardly seems appropriate to restrict billions of people just to protect those few. It would be more efficient to isolate them, which most of them probably already are (in care homes or hospitals).
This isn't how pandemics work - and this is a large part of why I emigrated from America. There is this insane conflation of liberty and personal freedoms.
You aren't getting vaccinated for yourself - you're getting vaccinated to help create a safe environment where this pandemic can be stamped out. We've lived with this for more than a year now - it isn't just going to magically disappear and, if we haven't done anything by winter, it's going to get worse again.
I'm also a bit reluctant about my country moving on to vaccinating low-risk groups (like myself) before assisting other countries with at-risk high-risk groups and overflowing hospitals. I understand why, and of course I would like to be vaccinated, but it feels wrong.
It's economic coercion. Frankly, public health officials and the pharmaceutical industry do not deserve our trust about these vaccines. People would be much more confident about taking them under different circumstances. I'll continue to take a wait and see approach. It appears likely the majority of the rest of the country will as well, if current decreased vaccination rates hold steady.
I'm vaccinated. I think this article is written by a troll. And I think >90% of voluntarily unvaccinated people have severe problems evaluating risks, likely including the author of this post.
That being said, there are legitimate reasons that a small number of people cannot or should not get vaccinated. We should be very careful not to treat these people as second class citizens in our zeal to protect ourselves.
I got a taste of this in the spring. I am living in a country where I am not a citizen, and was last in line to qualify for a vaccine. Without a vaccine certificate, I was unable to enter restaurants, bars and some other businesses. For me, I think it was a reasonable short term restriction, but it sure felt extremely unfair to not be able to enter places, and not have any power to change that.
We ought to be doing everything we can to vaccinate as many people as possible right now, during a crisis period. I'm in support of temporary vaccine mandates and immunity passports. But they need to have a time limit that's measured in months, not years. I'm hopeful that all these mandates and intrusive bureaucracy is completely over by mid-2022.
Getting a vaccine to cross an international border is not the same as getting a vaccine to walk to a bar on your own street in your own country. Besides, people who have not had the Covid vaccine are not directly preventing anyone from enjoying life. The people are either choosing to not enjoy life themselves, or their government is putting restrictions on them (and then they are obeying them) while blaming the restrictions on non-vaccinated people.
From what I understand, their vaccination rates are quite low. This is due to the "social contract" of government lockdowns. The people accept that there will be strict quarantine procedures for positive cases, and so they feel more free to go about life as normal, and likewise avoid the vaccine.
The majority don’t, though. The country did not sign up for a quarantine until vaccine was released, if ever. People are free to quarantine until vaccines are out, but please don’t force this oppression on everyone else.
Political pressure or rather information on the benefits of the vaccine is the best way to improve the situation for any country.
Where it goes wrong is if said country begins to deny participation in society, by for example requiring continuous testing for those who are not vaccinated. These measures in reality decreases your ability to participate.
So everyone on HN feels like the unvaccinated are part of an oppressed caste? I really don't understand the comments I am reading here. There are large groups of people who are unvaccinated by choice, not because of genuine health concerns. A friend of mine is unable to get vaccinated due to serious health concerns, and she is furious that do many people refuse to get it, as it continues to prevent her from living a normal life.
most people in my experience are fed up of trying to avoid contracting and would rather the much lower risk of vaccine (bare in mind 10+m people have received this vaccine in the UK with no known issues)
> Why must I be vaccinated if the vaccine doesn't prevent spread? (...) I am comfortable catching the disease and even comfortable dying from it
Became it's not about you, it's about everyone around you as a group. Those who are "comfortable catching the disease" are taking up a non-insignificant portion of available hospital beds, for instance, keeping health workers at their limit and preventing other people from getting treatment for diseases for which there is no accessible, free vaccine to take.
Organizations are expected to do what's best for the majority of those they represent. Sure, some people may not want to wear a helmet all day and would be willing to take the risk. But if one of those people gets impaled and dies it ends up putting a burden in everyone around them, from those picking up the skull pieces and the person's family to the investors.
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